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| [Painting by Dina Levin] |
In one of La Fontaine’s fables, a pig,
sheep and goat are on a wagon on their way to the market. The pig squeals in
fear (justified in the case) but the sheep and goat prefer to enjoy the view. I
cannot say who is more correct or whether this fable applies to AI. However,
after listening to my engineering students make oral presentations about processes
pre- and post-AI, I definitely understand that there is a certain pleasure in
the actual process independent of the result as I will demonstrate with three
examples provided by my very talented engineering students.
Among the many lectures were presentations
on the revolution in travel planning, translation and image creation. Specifically, before AI, travel planning necessarily involved either
consulting a travel agent or spending hours finding appropriate flights,
assessing hotels and investigating potential tourist sights. With AI, a series
of prompts with follow up questions can theoretically create a complete
vacation plan in minutes. Likewise, as I know too well, human translation
involves a significant investment of time and effort to reproduce a given text
into another language. With AI, this same process can take less than a minute
and involves almost no effort at all, leaving plenty of time and energy to edit
and improve the created text. Even more extreme, AI makes it possible for the
artistically-limited to create any image, real or imagery, without any
skill in graphic arts or software. AI
can take over the process of creation, benefiting people by saving time and
effort.
Granted, at least at this point, AI often
produces a flawed product, sometimes to the point of non-relevancy. For
example, the AI engines I tried for finding flights failed to identify the most convenient flight of a given route (Tel Aviv, Israel to Portland, Oregon) ,
which I was able to find. It may be a matter of the nature of the prompts or
the type of AI but the results do not seem sufficiently exhaustive. In language, AI
translations of specialized texts exhibit far too many serious terminology and
syntax issues. This tendency means that a skilled human translator must invest
time and energy in reviewing the text before the text is relevant. AI images quite often look artificial, which can be a detrimental feature in many of their
uses, especially commercial. Furthermore, humans creates images that are much
more individual and unique. Thus, AI is not yet capable of fully replacing the process of human
creation.
For me, the greatest issue is that I enjoy
the challenge of creation both despite and because of its challenges and investment.
It is strange but one of the greatest pleasures of traveling is planning it,
including finding the “best” flight. My father took great pleasure in that art
as do I. It is my trip as I have invested in it. Similarly, translation is an
act of writing and creation just as much as writing the original version. The
transformation of a text from one language to another can be challenging but
that aspect is precisely what I seek, at least up to a certain degree. It is
the pleasure of learning and testing oneself. As for pictures, I find an
artist’s rendition of a scene in pencil, oil, watercolor or even using a
digital photograph is far more impressive than any AI image. The reasons may be
that I have no talent in that direction and find the process magic or that I seek
the privilege of seeing the scene exactly how the artists viewed it. Human
creation has a far greater impact on me regardless of whether the creator is
someone else or myself.
It is clear that there are solid economic
reasons for adopting AI processes whether on an industrial or smaller scale.
However, as a matter of personal taste, I tend to focus on the experience of
the process more the result. In fact, I wish myself and others what Serge Reggiani
sang in “Ma fille” (admittedly in another context): “Bonne route” – a good
journey.
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